Hi Judi, I teach a Human Biology course for non-majors and use TBL. I think reading guides or study guides are a great idea. My students seem to appreciate that structure. When I first took over the course, I designed it from the table of contents in the text book, which is probably the typical approach, partly because I didn’t know of any other way and partly because I had less than a week to prepare a syllabus and start teaching. I quickly figured out that the order of topics in the text book did not suit my goals and was not best for my non-majors students. I would guess that your human development text goes through the life stages from birth to death. But you don’t have to move in that direction necessarily. For example, you could work backwards. Or, if your students are all about the same age, you could start there. My course is structured around the organ systems of the human body. I start with the organ systems the students are more likely to be familiar with and move toward more complex topics. Also, I plan the first learning activity to be what I think of as a hook, something that is relevant to students’ lives and draws them in and lets them know right away that this is going to be a fun and interesting class. Once you have that starting point, just keep building on it throughout the semester. Hope that helps. Dianne York, MS, MT(ASCP) Lecturer, Biology Lincoln University, PA [log in to unmask]